Boston’s Irish community rows in behind Katie’s Born to Run campaign

Katie O’Halloran never thought a conversation born in Connemara would bring her to Boston to meet with Mayor Marty Walsh on the eve of a symbolic marathon.

She never expected the momentum of her Born to Run campaign to move from The Saturday Night show to Boston backstreets where Irish emigrants have been working hard to raise the €300,000 needed to secure her a set of bionic arms.

But the embrace of ‘three marathons in three countries in three weeks’ has widened and today, O’Halloran, who was born with no arms and a deformed right leg, will wait anxiously at the finish line for neighbour Michael Cloherty who has ground out the hard yards in this campaign. Their journey has been a hopscotch of road miles and air miles from Connemara to London and now Boston where she has found significant support within the emigrant community and recently elected mayor Marty Walsh.

“It’s surreal, unbelievable. I’m really surprised and glad that they [the Irish in Boston] think my story is something they can get behind,” said O’Halloran.

On Saturday night Mayor Walsh, 46, whose parents hail from Connemara, breezed into a benefit night in Freeport Hall, Dorchester, just around the corner from where he grew up. It’s a part of town synonymous with Irish emigrants where O’Halloran fundraising flyers feature in every Irish bar from Adams Street to Dorchester Ave.

“The Irish community always supports their own and my uncle, Peter, has been very involved in the community and they asked me to get involved and help out a little bit,” Walsh told the Irish Examiner. “I’m here to support Katie in all the efforts that are being done. This is very big and this is very big to Boston. It’s very important to the community and I want to be as supportive as I can be.”

Race officials estimate that a million spectators will line the 26.2 mile course that will be travelled by 36,000 runners today. It is set to be a symbolic commemoration following last years’s bombing which left three dead and 264 injured.

Human interest stories have dominated the pages of the Boston Globe and the Herald all week, but the story of O’Halloran and the support she has found by way of the city’s Irish community has featured in cafes, bars and, significantly, City Hall. Three marathons in three weeks: Connemara, London and now Boston — the destinations were planned but Michael Cloherty never envisaged such momentum and the support of some serious names.

The 38-year-old spoke of cold winter nights pounding the road in Connemara, but explained how the energy of the campaign carried him over the line to complete leg number one.

“I was doing it for a huge cause. If I was just doing it for myself there would have been days I wouldn’t have bothered. But it was for Katie. We grew up near each other, our families know each other — that took the difficulty out of it.”

O’Halloran had waited to cross with him then and she will be there waiting at the finish on Boylston today hoping for a repeat as Cloherty’s steps move her closer to a set of prosthetic arms and, independence that comes with a Boston mayoral stamp.

“It will transform my life really. To be able to do small tasks like shake a person’s hand, carry a handbag, open doors. I’m just really happy so many people have put in so much effort.”